Donovan - Split With Most and Later Career

Split With Most and Later Career

In late 1969, the productive relationship between Mickie Most and Donovan ended abruptly after an argument over the conduct of an unidentified recording session in Los Angeles. In the 1995 BBC Radio 2 special The Donovan Story, Most recounted:

"The only time we ever fell out was in Los Angeles when there was all these, I suppose, big stars of their day, the Stephen Stills-es and the Mama Cass-es, all at the session and nothing was actually being played. Somebody brought some dope into the session and I stopped the session and slung them out. You know you need someone to say it's my session, I'm paying for it. We fell out over that."

Donovan declared that he wanted to record with someone else, and they did not work together again until Cosmic Wheels (1973). After the rift, Donovan disappeared, apparently to Greece, re-emerging six months later to begin work on his next LP. In late 1970, the result, which was both titled and credited to Open Road, came out and was a marked departure from his earlier work. Stripping the sound back to a rock trio format, he dubbed the sound, "Celtic Rock". The album was moderately successful, but it marked the start of a gradual decline in his popularity and commercial success, and his concert appearances became increasingly rare. Reflecting on this transitional period in 2005, Donovan commented:

"I was exhausted and looking for roots and new directions. I checked into Morgan Studios in London and stayed a long while creating Open Road and the HMS Donovan sessions. Downstairs was McCartney, doing his solo album. I had left Mickie after great years together. The new decade dawned and I had accomplished everything any young singer songwriter could achieve. What else was there to do but to experiment beyond the fame and into the new life, regardless of the result?"

Unlike his friends The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, Donovan had toured consistently throughout the late 1960s, often playing to sell-out crowds. But the reality was that, for most of the top British performers of the period, their commercial success was being savagely undercut by the punitive British tax rate levied on high earners. By the turn of the decade Donovan's advisers were pressing him to go into a self-imposed "tax exile" for a year, during which he was not supposed to set foot in the UK:

"I travelled to Japan and was set to stay out of the the UK for a year and earn the largest fees yet for a solo performer, and all tax-free. At the time the UK tax for us was 98%. During that Japanese tour I had a gentle breakdown, which made me decide to break the tax exile. Millions were at stake. My father, my agent they pleaded for me not to step onto the BOAC jet bound for London. I did and went back to my little cottage in the woods. Two days later a young woman came seeking a cottage to rent. It was Linda."

After this fortuitous reunion, Donovan and Linda married on 2 October 1970 at Windsor Registry Office and they honeymooned in the Caribbean. From this time on Donovan dropped out of the standard round of tour promotion and concentrated on writing, recording and his young family. The largely self-produced children's album HMS Donovan was released in 1971, but failed to gain a wide audience (due mainly to it being a UK only release).

During an 18-month tax "exile" in Ireland in 1971-72, Donovan penned songs for the 1972 film The Pied Piper in which he also played the title role, and for Brother Sun, Sister Moon (1972), Franco Zeffirelli's film about St Francis of Assisi. The title song from the Zeffirelli film provided Donovan with an unexpected publishing windfall in 1974 when it was covered as the B-side of the million-selling US top 5 hit "The Lord's Prayer", by Australia's singing nun, Sister Janet Mead.

After signing a lucrative new deal with Epic, Donovan reunited with Mickie Most in early 1973, resulting in the LP Cosmic Wheels, which featured arrangements by Chris Spedding. It was his last chart success, reaching the top 40 in both America and Britain. Late in the year he released Essence To Essence, produced by Andrew Loog Oldham, and a live album recorded in Japan (and only released in Japan), which featured an extended version of "Hurdy Gurdy Man" that included an additional verse written by George Harrison in Rishikesh. He also performed vocals on the Alice Cooper song "Billion Dollar Babies".

Donovan's later output included the albums 7-Tease (1974) and Slow Down World (1976), his last recording for Epic. In 1977, he toured as the opening act for Yes during their summer tour of the US following the release of their Going for the One album. The 1978 LP, Donovan was released on Most's RAK Records in the UK and on Clive Davis' new Arista Records label in the USA; it reunited him for the last time with Mickie Most and John Cameron, but was not well received at the height of the New Wave period and failed to chart. It was followed by Neutronica (1980), Love Is Only Feeling (1981), Lady Of The Stars (1984), and a 1990 live album featuring new performances of his classic songs.

The punk era (1977–1980) had provoked a backlash in Britain against the optimism and whimsy of the hippie era, of which Donovan was considered a prime example. The word "hippie" became pejorative, and Donovan's fortunes with the public and the media suffered. In this period he guest-starred on Stars on Ice, a half-hour variety show on ice produced by CTV in Toronto, Canada.

There was a brief respite for Donovan when he appeared alongside Sting, Phil Collins, Bob Geldof, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck – in the Amnesty International benefit show The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. He was accompanied by Danny Thompson and performed several of his hits including "Sunshine Superman", "Mellow Yellow", "Colours", "Universal Soldier", and "Catch the Wind". He also featured in the line-up of the all-star performance of Dylan's I Shall Be Released for the show's finale. Donovan's performances were seen and heard worldwide on the resulting album and movie, released in 1982.

A tribute album to Donovan, Island of Circles, was released by Nettwerk in 1991.

Sony's 2-CD boxed set Troubadour: The Definitive Collection 1964–1976 (1992) continued the restoration of his reputation, and was followed by the overdue 1994 release of Four Donovan Originals, which saw his four classic Epic LPs released on CD in their original form for the first time in the UK. He found a seemingly unlikely ally in rap producer and Def Jam label owner Rick Rubin, who was a long-time fan. Rubin financed and produced Donovan's critically acclaimed 1996 album, Sutras.